


Moving on and Letting Go

by DNAGraceless



Category: Conviction (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, F/M, I may have forgotten to write sam in every once in a while, haha - Freeform, mentions of this kid being beaten to death with a pipe, sorta - Freeform, sue me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 04:33:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8564224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DNAGraceless/pseuds/DNAGraceless
Summary: Just a case fic as an excuse to write a little Tess/Hayesafter a kid is killed and his three best friends sent to jail for the murder, Hayes has to solve the crime, find the murder, all with Wallace hovering over her team





	

Tess’ wonderful weekend had been shattered as the clock struck midnight and Monday sunk its ugly claws into her. She felt a slight ray of hope, along with the confusion, when Hayes announced that the team would be picking the case. They settled on the case of a teenage boy went missing, later found dead in a river. A group of three ‘troubled’ teens who hung out near the convenience store the boy worked in were convicted in no evidence other than ‘violent potential’.  
Hayes and Maxine had just returned from alerting the boy’s mother when Wallace arrived.  
“What are you doing here?” Hayes asked, walking up to join him, as though she was protecting her case, or her team. Tess liked to think it was both. “Don’t you have a job?”  
“I’m doing it. The CIU is my department; I have a responsibility to make sure it’s running smoothly. I figured with some free time,”  
“You’d butt into our investigation?”  
“Oversee, is the word. What case are you working on?”  
“The Callen Humphries case,” She answered after a moment, “Three teens received life sentences on no motive and circumstantial evidence. Is that all?”  
“No. I’m supervising on this one.”  
“You said no interference.”  
“I’m not interfering.”  
“And if I don’t allow it, what? You’ll tell on me to my mother?”  
“You don’t get a choice. Don’t let this interfere with your work.”  
He walked around her and Hayes took a second, and a breath, to calm herself. Turning on her heel she walked back into the conference room to hear Wallace explaining the situation to her team.  
“So what’s the case?” Wallace asked, as though Hayes hadn’t just told him.  
“The Callen Humphries case,” Sam answered. “Three years ago, three teens with behavioural issues got life sentences for the death and mutilation of a sixteen year old boy found in a river two blocks from the convenience store Humphries worked at.”  
What information do we have so far?”  
Maxine, Tess and Frankie looked to Hayes, waiting for her nod before they began explaining.  
“Tanya Wells, Jessica Harper and Peter Collinsly are all teens from broken homes,” Tess began, “They had behavioural issues, but after being tested the court declared that their issues weren’t precursors to violent, especially strangers.”  
“Then why were they suspects?”  
“Tanya Wells lived a few blocks from the convenience store and would hang out at the bus stop almost every day,” Maxine added, “and were known for picking on the local kids. However the local law enforcement admit that they never got physical, it was just the usual stupid teenager stuff,”  
“According to the shop owner the kids never picked on Callen,” Frankie said.  
“If anything they were protective of him,” Tess continued, “He’d let them buy food if they were a few dollars short, snuck them drinks when they were waiting outside. They were protective of him.”  
“All three still protest their innocence,” Said Sam, “But none of them have alibi’s for the night, despite admitting that they were all together and they did go to see Callen after he finished work, but claims he was already gone.  
“Alright,” Wallace said, nodding to Hayes, “you’re lead.”  
“I know.” Hayes stepped up to the head of the table. “Maxine, take Sam, go talk to the three teenagers parents, see if you can make a timeline for that night. Tess, review the crime scene, see if there’s anything they missed or if anything sticks out. Frankie, with me,”  
They headed out, leaving Wallace behind for his own good.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Hayes said to Tanya across the table. Tanya Wells was nineteen now, a pretty Hispanic girl with thick black hair resting above her shoulders.  
“Thanks,” Tanya said weakly.  
“And, we’re sorry for bringing this up again, but if we can find reasonable evidence that you’re innocent we might be able to get you out.” Frankie said.  
Tanya laughed weakly without humour. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I can forget. An innocent kid died and everything I look at reminds me that the whole world thinks I did it.”  
“We might be able to clear that up. We need you to tell me anything you can about Callen.”  
Tanya shrugged. “I don’t know. I only know what I was told-”  
“No, not about the case,” Hayes interrupted gently, “about him,”  
Frankie was… surprised, at her tact.  
Tanya thought for a minute. “He… he dropped out of school at fourteen. His dad died in Iraq, his mum was having a baby. A little girl. I met her once. He talked about her all the time, had her picture on the register. He wanted to go back to school one day. He read a lot. had a crush on this girl who came in every day,”  
“What girl?” Hayes asked.  
“Casey, I think her name was. She was pretty. Blonde. They went to elementary school together. She liked him too, I know, cus she came in every day, spent like half an hour in talking to him before school.”  
“Did you and Callen ever spend time together when he wasn’t working?”  
“Not really. He was working almost all the time. We, uh, we invited him to hang out after his shift that night, but, he wanted to go home. See his sister. It was her birthday the next day, and he wanted to help his mum set up. He’d brought all of her presents, all the decorations and everything. We… we chipped in, bought her a rabbit, but we never got too.”  
“When was the last time you saw him?” Frankie asked.  
“That day at lunch. We would head over; he’d buy us some hot food, a drink. We’d eat out back in the shade.”  
“And the shop owner never had a problem?”  
“Nah, we never stole, didn’t break anything. He didn’t care, so long as we didn’t pick on Callen. He was our friend.”  
“Do your friends feel the same way?” Hayes asked.  
“Yeah. Peter was devastated, lost his mind when the… body was found. Jesse still cries sometimes, I hear her in the next cell. He took care of us. He’d help us with our homework, listen to us. He was like the parent we never had. He was younger than me, but he was like a big brother. And we lost him. We didn’t kill him.”

Hayes and Frankie both felt pretty icky inside as they walked back up to the DA’s office.  
“We’ll run security,” Frankie said, beginning to regret this case. If they didn’t get these kids out, he was going to feel like shit, “see if we can find the girl,”  
“By girl do you mean Casey Garner?” Maxine asked, joining them outside the conference room.  
“Possibly,” Hayes frowned, “how did you know?”  
“Because she’s in your office,”

 

Hayes resisted the urge break Wallace’s stupid face as he stood in the corner while she and Tess investigated Casey Garner.  
“Callen was a really sweet guy. Even when I turned him down he was still as nice as always.”  
“Why did you turn him down?”  
“I didn’t want to date while in school. A relationship just seemed like too big a distraction. But I liked seeing him. He made my day, to be honest. I felt so bad turning him down, especially since I’d spent the last ten months flirting with him. I didn’t even realise until then that I didn’t even know his last name. I kinda felt like a slut.”  
“Don’t worry,” She nodded to Wallace, “I didn’t know any of his name for the first six months and I’m pretty sure we were introduced like, twice. But I am kind of a slut so…”  
Casey smiled, giving a breathy laugh.  
“Did you see Callen that day?” Tess asked gently.  
“Yeah, I stopped by around one, talked for about twenty minutes before heading back to school.”  
“Did everything seem normal?”  
“Yeah, he was as happy as always. Was excited for his little sisters first birthday. He bought her a sandpit.”  
“Can you think of any reason someone would hurt him?”  
“None. He was nice to everyone, didn’t have many friends. None, actually, besides the kids that hung around the store. Everyone in the neighbourhood liked him.”  
“Can I ask,” Hayes asked, “Why you didn’t come forward earlier?”  
Casey shrugged uneasily. “My parents… they told me it wouldn’t do any good. By the time I found out they were already investigating Tanya, Jesse and Peter and my dad told me I’d just impede the case.”  
“Did your father work on the case?” Hayes asked, leaning sitting up.  
“Yeah, he was the lead detective.”

 

“Okay, so Casey Garner’s father Jeffrey Garner was lead detective on the case,”  
“If he stopped Casey from coming forth that could mean she was involved.” Frankie added.  
“Then why would Casey come forth now if she’d gotten away with it?” Hayes countered.  
“The kids have no motive,” Tess said, crossing it out of the board, “and they have no history of violence. They’ve been having monthly visits with a psychiatrist, and there have been no cracks. They all say they were in Jessica Harper’s basement until eleven, when her dad came home, and they walked over to Tanya’s.”  
“Did we get anything from Peter?” Maxine asked.  
“No; he was moved to a psychiatric ward after a suicide attempt last year.” Hayes said. “Initially it was reported as guilt, but his therapist concluded that it was from depression from the loss. Peter was unstable even before prison.”  
“The girls were his biggest confidents,” Tess continued, “Jesse and Tanya both repeatedly used the word family, brother, sisters. They were obviously very close. They even still write Peter every day.”  
“Peter was the youngest; Tanya being sixteen at the time of the murder, jess being fifteen and Peter being fourteen,”  
“But all of them were tried as adults?” Wallace asked. They’d almost forgotten he was there. If only.  
“Due to the heinous nature of the crimes,” Said Sam.  
“Fair enough; I mean the kid was unrecognisable,” Said Maxine, wincing at the file containing the victim’s picture in the middle of the table.  
“Frankie, take Tess go to the scene. Maxine with me we’re going to talk Garner.”  
“I’ll go with you,” Wallace said, and Hayes ground her teeth. Aggressively grabbing her purse, she stalking out with Maxine.

 

“So,” Frankie said as they got out of the car, trekking down the incline to the leaf covered forest floor, “You and Hayes huh?”  
“What?” Tess said, “What do you mean?”  
Frankie gave her a look. “Come on. She’s suddenly a lot nicer, especially to you, she’s all but ignoring Wallace. Besides, I’m not blind.”  
“So… everyone knows?”  
“Maxine is pretty sure, and Sam suspects. I don’t know, he hasn’t really said anything,”  
“Do you think Wallace knows?” Tess blurted as they reached the stream.  
“I think he’s too obsessed with Hayes to think about anyone else, or to accept it if he has noticed.” He pulled out his iPad and started searching for the notes. They ran through the police re-enactment.  
“The death blow was delivered here,” Frankie said, less than two metres from the river’s edge, “with some sort of blunt object, possibly a pipe or a baseball bat, something like that.”  
“They searched the lake,” Tess said, walking over and looking out over its murky surface. “No weapon was found.”  
“How did they search the area? This is pretty muddy, things could get sucked away, even on the land.”  
“Just law enforcement,”  
“No dogs,”  
“No,”  
“Okay. The killing was brutal, done with anger, and not too far off his path home. The way the body was dumped tells us it wasn’t premeditated, at least not planned.”  
“That’s why the kids were such a good cop out. Rash, impulsive; they could have grabbed a murder weapon and had a location in mind but not a way of disposing the body.”  
“We’ll do another search; see if we can find anything that doesn’t add up.”  
The two split up making their pathway through the soggy bank. Tess was only a hundred metres along the bank, the nearby bridge in sight, when her heel sunk straight through the mud, sending her falling into the river.  
“Tess! Tess, are you okay?” Frankie came running as she tried to sit up herself out, thoroughly soaked, mud everywhere.  
“What happened?” Frankie asked, reaching his hand out for her.  
“Wait, wait,” Tess reached down where her hip had landed. There was something hard and… cloth. After a struggle she pulled it out, still sitting in the mud.  
“What is that?” Frankie asked.  
“No idea.” Tess took his hand and he pulled her out of the river, kneeling with her as they unwrapped the cloth.  
“Someone filled the pockets with rocks.” Frankie said. “This looks like flannel.”  
“Oh my God,” Tess said, pulling the pipe out of the flannel shirt. 

 

“Tess, my office!” Hayes said, storming through the conference room to her office almost five hours later. Tess jumped up and ran after her, flinching at the sound of thunder outside.  
“Frankie’s down in the lab we found a pipe hidden in the river. It’s rusted but he thinks he can get some DNA is, everything alright?” She asked, knowing it was not.  
“We had a very eventful day. Turns out our cop was protecting his daughter who didn’t need protecting since she didn’t do it, and our arresting officer admitted to not actually thinking that the kids he put in jail for three years are actually guilty.” As she ranted she poured a small amount of whatever the hell she drank at work into a glass before pushing it away in favour of her coffee. When that was empty she took a mouthful of the cup she’d brought for Tess before giving it to her.  
“Thanks,” Tess smiled, sitting opposite her.  
“What happened to your clothes?”  
Tess blinked looking down at herself. She’d changed from the shirt and skirt to a dress. She was still wearing the jacket Frankie had given her on the way back.  
“I… found a pipe in the mud, we think it might be the murder weapon.”  
“How did you find the pipe?” She asked in her lawyer voice which Hayes refuses to call her parent voice.  
“I… may have fallen on it.”  
“You fell into the river?”  
“…Yeah.”  
“Are you okay?”  
“Yeah,”  
“Tess,”  
“I cut my arm, it’s nothing, really,”  
“Show me.”  
Hayes stood up and made her way around the desk. Tess gave up her left arm, pulling down the sleeve.  
“You got stitches?”  
“Are you guys even trying?” Frankie asked from the doorway. Hayes let go of Tess’ arm when she pulled it back and leaned back on her desk.  
“Did you find something?”  
“Yep,” Frankie said, smacking the piece of paper in his and, “we have a murder weapon.”

 

“The teenagers have no motive, and after a second opinion on the medical report it was discovered that only one killer was involved. The wounds were all consistent and were done with much more force than possible for any of the kids, even Tanya.” Tess said, piece by piece unravelling the case against the alleged murderers.  
“We still don’t have an alibi, or any other suspects.” Wallace pointed out. Great. He was still buzzing around.  
Hayes glared at him as he dare interrupt her girlfriends roll.  
“Actually we did find something,” Frankie said, drawing the attention of everyone in the room as he walked through the door. “We found another person’s blood on the pipe. We initially didn’t think it would be enough to trace them, but it was enough to find strands of a rare blood condition only six people in new York have, only one of which is on our suspect list.”  
“Who?” Sam asked.  
“Karen Dawson, Callen Humphries mother, who I just discovered took out a fifty thousand dollar insurance claim on her son a year before he died.”  
Despite having it laid out before them, it took a moment to sink in. Hayes finally snapped out of it.  
“Maxine, with me,”  
Wallace didn’t follow. 

Tess was waiting for Hayes outside the building when she returned that night.  
“Are you okay?”  
“Honestly?” Hayes asked, stopping beside her. “No.”  
“Do you want to talk about it? I still have the rest of…. Whatever you bought last weekend left.”  
Hayes smiled, pushing her hair out of her face. “I gotta finish up, I’ll head over when I’m done.”  
“Okay,” Hayes kissed her cheek and headed up to her office, ready to pass out on Tess’ lounge with one of those boring TV movies playing in the background. She could really go for Tess playing with her hair right now.  
Of course, just to cap off the shitty and emotionally exhausting case, Wallace was sitting in her chair.  
“What do you want? The case is closed. Your supervising is done for the week.” Hayes grabbed her jacket and notebook off the desk.  
“I wanted to ask you something.”  
“Ask away.”  
Wallace looked up at her for a long moment. “Did you really not know my name for the first six months after we met?”  
“Yeah, about that,”  
“You were flirting with me that whole first night.”  
“Yeah to piss of my mum, then I found out she actually liked you. I didn’t actually care; you were just another guy in a suit then.”  
“Huh,” Wallace said, standing up.  
“Yeah,” Hayes said, facing him. “What are you doing here, I thought I saw Naomi lurking around.”  
“She is, but I came to see you,”  
“Really? So, you bring in my Ex just to hurt me, then you both get together to hurt me, and I’m, what, sitting in the background being hurt like a good little doll?”  
“I was angry.”  
“So you’re not angry anymore? I thought you were done,”  
“I was. But I was fooling myself. I’ll never be done with you. And, you’ve… grown up a lot.”  
“The new Hayes Morrison,”  
“New Hayes is hot.”  
“Too bad she hates you,”  
“You don’t hate me,”  
“And why’s that?”  
“Well, I am very handsome,”  
“Hmm. Are you sure you don’t have a date tonight?”  
“Positive.”  
Hayes looked him up and down, running her hand up to his collar and back down, resting over his heart. His hand came to rest over hers as they were just inches apart,  
She straightened her arm, pushing him back and slipping her hand out from under his.  
“Well I do, and I’m late.”  
Hayes grabbed her stuff and headed out to her office, only to stop before she could reach her door.  
“Hayes,”  
“Yes?”  
“What am I to you now?”  
Hayes thought on the question for just a second.  
“We’ve come full circle Conner.” She said. “You’re just another suit.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always a slut for comments


End file.
